


Did You Just Flip Me Off?

by leopharry



Category: South Park
Genre: Boys Will Be Boys, M/M, Slice of Life, gratuitous use of the middle finger, just a little bit, not very shippy, they're nerds who make each other laugh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 19:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12637929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leopharry/pseuds/leopharry
Summary: When the principal takes Craig's phone, Craig flips him off and gets detention. Tweek also flips him off. Tweek also gets detention.





	Did You Just Flip Me Off?

**Author's Note:**

> I read [this answer](https://askcrxig.tumblr.com/post/167146040352/you-two-ever-get-in-trouble-together) on the [askcrxig](https://askcrxig.tumblr.com/) ask blog on tumblr, and immediately knew that someone had to write it, so I figured I'd do it. I messaged one of the bloggers (who are both listed on the ask blog's side bar) to ask if I could write a fic based on it, and was given permission, so instead of working on my NaNo novel, which I am like, five days behind on (haha oops), I wrote this instead, and had a lovely evening.
> 
> I'm absolutely positive that I should probably not post it right this instant, but I also know that if I don't post it right now, it will likely never get posted, so I'm going to forego any editing and just. Let it be, for once in my life.
> 
> Anyways, I had a great time writing this, so I hope you guys have a great time reading it. :)

“Hey, Craig. Do you remember what the--nnrgh--math homework was today?”

Craig didn’t look up from his phone as he responded, “It was that fractions worksheet, you put it in your folder.”

“Oh yeah. Thanks,” Tweek replied, opening his folder to double check, then shoving it haphazardly into his backpack. He looked back in his locker. “Do you think I’ll need the textbook?”

Craig shrugged, still looking down at his phone, tapping on the screen. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Tweek hummed, considered, and then grabbed his math book, shoving that in along with his folder. He slammed his locker shut, zipped his bag, then slung it over his shoulder carelessly, spooking himself when it hit the lockers behind him with a loud thunk and a louder, “GAH!”

“Okay, I’m ready,” Tweek said breathlessly, as soon as he was done looking frantically both ways to make sure nobody had noticed him freaking out. Everybody being well accustomed to Tweek’s fits of panic, very few people had even looked.

“Hold up a second, I just want to finish this level,” Craig said, still tapping his phone’s screen. Tweek inched closer to peer over Craig’s shoulder, curious about what he was playing. He had no idea what it was--something set in space, which figured. Craig found new space games to play on his phone all the time. If they were good, he’d tell Tweek about it. If they were really good, he’d recommend it to him, and Tweek would play it a couple of times before forgetting about it, eventually deleting it to make room for apps that appealed to his own interests. Space wasn’t very appealing to Tweek--“ _i_ _t’s so big, there’s too much of it, and what is all of it anyways?!_ ”--but he would try to give the games a shot for Craig’s sake. And in turn, Craig would listen to whatever political news or conspiracy theory that had caught Tweek’s interest that day. They always had something to talk about.

Craig had just reached the level boss when a hand came from out of nowhere, snatching the phone right out of Craig’s.

“Hey!” Craig exclaimed, and simultaneously, Tweek shrieked.

“Sorry, Craig, you know the rules,” PC Principal said, holding the phone out of Craig’s reach. “Phones stay put away until you’re off school property.”

“But it’s the end of the day!” Craig fired back.

“I know, but rules are rules. You know that I’m supportive of you two, but I still can’t let you walk around, breaking the rules. If I let you do it, I’d have to let every--hey! Did you just flip me off?”

Craig looked down at his right hand, which was, in fact, flipping off PC Principal. He quickly lowered it. “No.”

“Yes you did, Craig,” PC Principal said, sighing. “It’s not equality if I treat you any different from the rest of the students, so why don’t you come with me. That’s gonna be a detention for you today.”

Craig sighed, rolling his eyes, and turned to Tweek. “Sorry, babe. Guess we’ll have to hang out after.”

“That’s all right, Craig,” Tweek said. He did his best to hide his disappointment, but Craig could still tell. He huffed heavily, and turned to follow PC Principal to the library, shoulders slumped, guilt souring his stomach.

They were just about to turn the corner when Tweek called out, “Hey! PC Principal!”

They both turned to look, and Craig watched in amazement as Tweek twitched, gritted his teeth, locked eyes with the principal and slowly raised his fist, his middle finger extended shakily but certainly.

Craig would swear his jaw didn’t drop, but if it did, he’d have given the excuse that he was too stunned to notice.

“Aw!” PC Principal called angrily, marching down the hallway and coming to a stop in front of Tweek. “All right. You too, Tweek. Detention. And I’ll be calling both of your parents. Let’s go.”

Tweek hurried along behind him, staring resolutely at the ground, his cheeks flushing.

 

* * *

 

PC Principal held the door open for them at the library, and when Mr. Mackey looked up to see Craig walking in, he sighed, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. “What is it this time, Craig?”

“This one flipped me off when I took his phone away for using it in the hallway, and this one flipped me off for giving him detention,” PC Principal explained, gesturing first at Craig, then at Tweek.

That caught Mr. Mackey’s attention. When his eyes landed on Tweek, they widened in surprise. “Really? Tweek did that?”

Tweek and Craig walked quietly to a table and sat down. PC Principal and Mr. Mackey were going on and on about ‘bad influences, m’kay’ and ‘we need to be supportive, but,’ but neither of them were listening. Tweek was twitching and tugging at his hair, and Craig was still too shocked to pay them any mind.

“All right, boys, now you sit quietly and listen to Mr. Mackey. I’ll be making a few phone calls to your parents, and we can figure out what to do from there,” PC Principal told them, and then he left, the door clicking shut behind him.

Mr. Mackey came over to their table, and Tweek shrunk a little in his seat. Craig, who was used to this, didn’t move. He took a minute to start talking, seemingly at a loss for how to address them. If Craig had been alone, Mr. Mackey would have been yelling the instant PC Principal left the room, but he seemed to be trying to be more considerate for Tweek’s sake. “M’kay, now, boys. You can’t flip off the principal. M’kay? Craig, you should know better by now, m’kay, and Tweek--” Tweek shuddered and let out a small noise of surprise at being addressed. “You shouldn’t do it just ‘cause you see Craig doing it. M’kay?”

“Okay, Mr. Mackey,” Tweek said through gritted teeth.

“M’kay. Now when he comes back, I want you two to apologize to him, m’kay? Because that’s disrespectful. M’kay?”

“Okay,” they both replied.

“M’kay. Now in the meantime, just do some homework. And if I catch you two talking, I’ll be splitting you up, m’kay?”

“Okay,” they repeated, and then they dutifully pulled their folders out of their backpacks and quietly got to work.

 

* * *

 

Craig typically didn’t bother doing his homework in detention. The noise from the other students in the room, coupled with the noise of the kids playing loudly out on the playground, tended to distract him. But it didn’t seem to bother him today; with Tweek sitting right next to him, he could almost pretend they were sitting at his dining room table doing their homework together, like they did most days.

It was only when he heard a quiet ‘psst’ from next to him that he looked up.

Tweek was flipping him off under the table with a lopsided, mischievous grin on his face.

He was stunned for a second before he devolved into quiet snickers, and then he flipped Tweek off too. Tweek repeated the motion, laughing under his breath, which riled Craig up even more, until eventually Mr. Mackey looked up from his book and caught them.

“All right, Craig,” he grumbled in annoyance. “Back table, go on.”

Still trying to contain his laughter, Craig picked up all his stuff and plopped it loudly on the table in the back of the room. Tweek sent him an apologetic glance over his shoulder until Mr. Mackey said, “Eyes forward, Tweek,” and he jumped and turned quickly back around.

It was another quiet few minutes of trying to do his homework--much harder now without his tablemate to keep him from getting distracted--when a balled up piece of paper hit him square in the forehead and plopped onto his fractions worksheet. He looked up, but Tweek was bent over his own homework, completely focused. Craig gently straightened it out, and had to cover his mouth firmly with his hand when it revealed a drawing of Tweek raising his middle finger. It was hard to tell that it was Tweek--Tweek could barely draw a stick figure--but it was definitely his drawing. The pencil lines were thin but pointed, every angle sharp, every circle shaky, and the shirt that was drawn over the stick figure torso was buttoned improperly--exactly where Tweek messed up his buttons almost every day.

Craig pulled a spare piece of paper out of his folder and quickly got to work.

 

* * *

 

It was a lot harder for Craig to get his pictures to Tweek than it was for Tweek, but he managed, and by the time PC Principal came back from his talks with their parents, he had a collection of Tweek’s drawings, and Tweek had a collection of his. He was most proud of the last one he’d sent--a picture of himself, flipping off Cartman and his gang, with a giant guinea pig looking on in the background. Tweek had only barely managed to convince Mr. Mackey that the laugh he’d been unable to contain had been a sneeze.

“All right, Craig, Tweek, my office. Your parents are on their way over. We’re all going to sit down and have a good, long talk about your behavior, and what we can all do together to keep this from happening again in the future,” PC Principal said, shepherding them out the door.

“Oh, uh, boys?” Mr. Mackey called. When they turned to look, Mr. Mackey made a gesture as if to say, ‘go on.’

“Oh!” Tweek said, then looked back at PC Principal. “I’m sorry for flipping you off.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Craig echoed.

“Thank you, boys. That was very mature of you,” he said, nodding to Mr. Mackey, then following the boys out of the library. “I accept your apology, and I forgive you. I also apologize for taking your phone away, Craig. I understand that you were frustrated, but it’s my job as the principal to enforce the rules, and using your phone in the building is against the rules.”

“It’s okay,” Craig said, and if Tweek didn’t know him as well as he did, he’d have missed that Craig was perplexed at the apology.

“Well. I’m glad we were able to have this talk,” PC Principal said, leading them into his office now. “We’ll still need to talk with your parents, but I think a respectful, fair solution to this problem can be reached.”

 

* * *

 

The two sets of parents arrived not long after, exchanging greetings.

“Richard, Helen,” PC Principal said, nodding at Tweek’s parents. “Thomas, Laura. It’s nice to see you all.”

“Our little troublemakers giving you a hassle, PC Principal?” Richard asked. “Now, Tweek, I’m surprised at you.”

“You too, Craig,” Thomas added.

“I want to chime in here real quick,” PC Principal said. “I just want to let you know that both of your sons gave me an apology when I took them out of detention.”

“You did?” Thomas exclaimed, looking down at his son in surprise.

“He did. We had a good talk, and I think both of these boys understand now that what they did was disrespectful to me, both as their principal and as a person. And I explained to Craig that what I did was not meant to be disrespectful to him, but that I am his principal, and therefore need to make sure that the school rules are being followed.”

Thomas and Richard exchanged brief glances before Helen said, “Well, I think I speak for all of us when I say that we’re grateful that this was all resolved so well between the three of you, but, um.”

“Why exactly did you feel it prudent to call us all down here, PC Principal?” Richard asked.

“Yeah,” Laura agreed. “Not that we mind stopping in if our son is misbehaving, but you seem to have it taken care of.”

PC Principal steepled his fingers and rested them over his mouth. “Well, Laura, Thomas, I felt it might be best if we could all have a talk about Craig’s behavior. If this were an isolated incident, I’d have given him detention and called it a day, but his using the middle finger is a recurring problem. And Richard, Helen, this being the first instance of Tweek misbehaving since I became principal, I thought we might want to have a discussion before it becomes an issue.” Here he paused, glancing down at the papers on his desk. “Now, I know that these two are in a relationship with each other, and you all know how strongly I support that, but I felt that now might be a good time for us all to meet together so that we can address any concerns openly.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Richard said, meeting Thomas’ eye.

“So, that being said,” PC Principal said, standing up and walking around his desk to lean on it, each hand tucked under the opposite armpit. “I wanted to ask you something, Tweek.”

Tweek bit his lip, almost muffling whatever exclamation he was going to let out, resulting in a weird humming noise, and his entire body spasmed before going stock still.

“Now, I don’t want to put you on the spot, because I know that anxiety is something you struggle with, so if you’re uncomfortable answering this question in front of everybody, you can say that, but when Craig flipped me off, he was doing it out of frustration at his phone being taken away, but you flipped me off for no apparent reason, well after I took Craig to detention. So why did you do it?”

“Hey, yeah,” Craig said, looking sideways at Tweek. That thought hadn’t occurred to him; Tweek was usually very polite to adults, always remembered his manners, and almost always did as he was told. He was so shocked that Tweek had done it that he hadn’t stopped to wonder why.

Tweek clenched his fists and bit his lip harder, his gaze flicking rapidly from Craig to PC Principal to his parents, before he looked down at his lap and mumbled something, twitching occasionally.

“I’m sorry, Tweek, I couldn’t hear that. What did you say?” PC Principal asked.

“I thought cruhwuhlyit,” Tweek mumbled again through his teeth, still staring resolutely at his lap.

PC Principal met Richard’s eye, and Richard shrugged. “One more time, Tweek, I’m sorry.”

Tweek took a deep breath and said, staggered, as if each word took all his effort to say, “I thought Craig would like it.”

Every eyebrow in the room shot up in surprise at that. For once, PC Principal was at a loss for words, and as the silence mounted, Tweek grew noticeably more uncomfortable.

Deciding to put the poor kid out of his misery, Craig put his hand on Tweek’s shoulder and said, “Well, thanks, Tweek. It was pretty funny. But you don’t have to get yourself put in detention for me next time, okay?”

Tweek looked up at him, surprised, then he cracked a smile. “Well, I don’t know. Detention wasn’t that bad.”

 

* * *

 

They hung around in the office for another twenty minutes or so. PC Principal wanted them all to open up about any concerns they had, but, except for Craig’s tendency to flip people off (which Thomas and Laura admitted might possibly have been behavior he’d learned at home), none of them really had any concerns. PC Principal brought up that they both had pretty good grades, and, now that they were being taught by a competent teacher (his words, which made everybody else in the room crack a grin), seemed to be thriving academically, and he mentioned towards the end that their relationship was neither a distraction for them nor a target for bullying from the other students.

“Well, Mr. and Ms. Tweak, Mr. and Ms. Tucker, if there aren’t any further concerns, I think we can wrap this up,” PC Principal finally said. Craig and Tweek slipped gratefully out of their chairs and followed their parents to the door. PC Principal led them out of his office, holding the door open for all of them as they did so. “I want to thank you guys for coming down here today. You’ve got a couple of great kids, really, but Craig, we just need to watch that attitude sometimes, all right? No more phone in the hallway?”

Craig nodded, and PC Principal nodded back.

“All right. Well, if anything comes up in the future, parents, my office is a safe space for everybody. Now you folks have a nice day.”

After the office door shut behind them, the six of them made for the exit.

“You know, I like that PC Principal,” Richard said offhandedly.

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed. “Nice guy.”

“Now, boys, I hope you’ve learned your lesson about not flipping off the principal,” Helen said, looking back to where their sons were trailing along behind them, their hands clasped together as they always were whenever they were walking anywhere together.

“We have, Mom,” Tweek said, looking at the ground.

“Yeah, Mrs. Tweak,” Craig agreed.

“Craig, you’re not in trouble,” Thomas said. “But if this keeps up, you’re gonna be, all right, son?”

“Okay, Dad,” Craig said. “I’ll try.”

“Good,” Thomas said, and just like that, it was dropped. Thomas and Richard started making small talk about the weather lately, and how the cold snap was affecting coffee sales, and Laura was mentioning to Helen that she tried the meatloaf recipe she’d given her when they got outside.

“No, you guys, I’m seriously,” came a familiar voice from the gate that lead to the playground. “Some kid in Denver did it, my cousin told me!”

“No way, dude,” said Stan. “There’s no way that’s possible.”

“Yeah-huh, Stan!” Cartman said. “My cousin saw it!”

“No, dude,” Kyle said, his tone flat. “You’d die. There is no way you could do that and not die.”

“You wanna bet? I’ll bet you ten dollars I can!”

“And I’ll bet you ten dollars that you’ll die before you even get halfway over!”

“Fine! Come on, Kenny. We’ll show them!”

And Cartman stomped off to do whatever death defying stunt he and his gang wanted to get up to today, Kenny snickering as he followed behind him.

The Tweaks and the Tuckers watched as Kyle and Stan watched them, and they heard Stan say, “You know, he might actually do it.”

And they heard Kyle reply, “Either he does it, and I owe him ten dollars, or he dies. Maybe I’ll get lucky this time.”

Then the two of them wandered off in the same direction Cartman and Kenny had just disappeared in, and the Tweaks met eyes with the Tuckers, and they all seemed to come to the same conclusion at once.

“Uh, boys....” Richard started.

“We’re just,” Thomas continued. “Very proud of you.”

“Yeah, kids,” Laura piped in. “Very, very proud of you.”

“Thanks,” Tweek said.

“Can we go now?” Craig asked.

Thomas looked towards Stan and Kyle’s retreating backs and said, “As long as you promise to stay as far away from those four as you can.”

Craig and Tweek didn’t waste a moment before they said, in unison, “Deal.”

And Thomas and Laura got in their car, and Richard and Helen got in their car, and they drove toward their respective homes, and Craig and Tweek, still holding hands, went off in search of their own adventure together.


End file.
